WQBQ Talk Track: Dwelliry Brings Hospitality-Inspired Design Back Home to Mount Dora

The Chamber, The “Q,” and You on WQBQ is a free on-air opportunity for Chamber members to share insights, highlight their services, and connect directly with the community.

A great room is about more than what is sitting in it.

It is how people move through the space, where they naturally gather, how comfortable they feel staying awhile and whether the room actually works for the people using it.

That philosophy is at the center of Dwelliry, a Mount Dora-based interior design and furnishings company founded by local native Chris Askew.

During a recent episode of The Chamber, The “Q,” and You on WQBQ, Askew shared the story behind Dwelliry, his return to Mount Dora and how a career spanning hospitality, business and design shaped a company focused on creating spaces that feel as good as they look.

More Than Decorating a Room

Dwelliry works with residential, hospitality and commercial spaces, offering interior design, custom and curated furnishings, architectural collaboration, project management and turnkey design solutions.

That can mean transforming a room in a private home, helping shape a vacation property, designing a restaurant or boutique hospitality environment, or coordinating the many moving pieces involved in bringing a larger design vision together.

For Askew, however, the starting point is not simply choosing furniture or finishes.

His approach borrows heavily from hospitality, where every decision can influence how someone experiences a space. Lighting, seating, layout, materials and functionality all contribute to whether people feel comfortable, connected and invited to stay.

It is a perspective built around a simple question: How do you want people to feel when they are here?

A Career Built Around Experience

Askew’s path to Dwelliry began well beyond traditional interior design.

A Mount Dora native and graduate of Mount Dora High School, he went on to attend the University of Central Florida before building a career that included leadership roles with recognizable hospitality and lifestyle brands including Planet Hollywood, Hard Rock Cafe and Island Company.

That experience exposed him to environments where atmosphere is part of the product.

A restaurant is not only its menu. A hotel is not only its rooms. A retail space is not only the merchandise on the shelves. The way a place looks, feels and functions helps determine whether people want to return.

Askew later brought that perspective into the design industry, co-founding A Squared Design Studio in Miami in 2017. Through A Squared and its sister company, Estetica Upholstery, his work expanded into hospitality and residential environments across North America and the Caribbean.

Dwelliry now brings that experience back to the community where his story began.

Bringing the Work Home to Mount Dora

Askew’s return to Mount Dora is an important part of the company’s identity.

After years of travel and working in other markets, Dwelliry represents an opportunity to build something rooted in his hometown while applying lessons learned from hospitality and design projects elsewhere.

That makes Mount Dora a particularly fitting home for the business.

The city is filled with homes, restaurants, shops, gathering spaces and historic properties where character matters. For Dwelliry, thoughtful design is not about erasing that character or making every space look the same. It is about understanding what makes a property distinctive and creating an environment that works for the people who use it.

That same philosophy extends beyond private homes.

Restaurants, offices, vacation properties, boutique hotels and other businesses can use design to shape the experience customers have from the moment they walk through the door.

Designing for Connection

One theme ran throughout Askew’s conversation: spaces have the ability to bring people together.

A dining room can encourage a family to stay around the table longer. A living room can become the place friends naturally gather. A restaurant can create an atmosphere customers associate with a memorable night out. A business can use its physical environment to communicate who it is before anyone says a word.

Dwelliry describes its work as designing experiences rather than simply decorating spaces.

For Askew, that means balancing beauty with comfort, function and the realities of everyday life.

Because ultimately, the success of a space is not determined only by how it photographs.

It is determined by how people live in it.

And after a career spent helping shape experiences in places far beyond Lake County, Askew is bringing that perspective home to Mount Dora.

Learn more about Dwelliry through the Mount Dora Area Chamber of Commerce member directory or connect with the Dwelliry team to discuss residential, hospitality and commercial design projects.